How might the compensation plan be revised to help fix this problem?

ark had been conducting his Overall, the sales and erned about a particular issue count managers was satisfactory, but vany new accounts for sev- e being generated from existing aid about retention; and Dark ore efficient to retain existing asked her, "Why aren't you more 248 Chapter 9 Sales Force Compensation Reps Selling Too Many Low-Profit Products RUNNING CASE Over the past several days, sales manager Adam Dark had bee annual performance reviews of his account managers. Overall Shiderlots profit results were satisfactory, but Dark was concerned about Elevators, Inc. with several of his account managers. Total sales volume for all of these account managers was satisfacto Dark was struck that they had not opened up hardly any new ac eral months. That is, almost all of their sales were being genera customers. The good part about this is what it said about retention often preached to his sales force how it is much more efficient to ret customers than it is to acquire new customers. the same time, he felt that his account managers should have a di focus on both retention and acquisition. Dark called up one of his m enced account managers, Carrie Duffner, and asked her, "Why aren' focused on getting new accounts?" | Duffner responded, "Well, I don't really see why I would do that. It's easi for me to develop my existing accounts. I have great relationships with them. I thoroughly understand their needs. It just doesn't pay for me to spend my time with the unknown prospects. It's more time consuming and high risk." After the conversation, Dark kept thinking about how Duffner said, "...it just doesn't pay." And he also remembered how company president, Rosann Speer, recently asked Dark whether or not he had any ideas about how to im- prove the compensation plan for the sales force. Currently, the account managers' compensation is a combination of sal- ary and incentive--with the incentives simply tied to generic sales and profits. Dark knew that a good compensation plan can control salespeople's activities to achieve the company's strategic goals. He began to get some ideas. Question: How might the compensation plan be revised to help fix this problem? direct sales cost. Management is interested in the compensation level because that is what attracts most salespeople. If reps believe that they will not be able to earn enough, they probably won't be attracted to the job regardless of method used. Conversely, they may take a job that pays well even the firm does not offer the combination all honrafer